


All Things

by Lafayette1777



Category: Arctic Monkeys, British Singers RPF, Indie Music RPF, Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: Ambiguity, Angst, California, Goodbyes, M/M, Paris - Freeform, Relationship Confusion, Rock en seine, change, end of the eycte era fic, i was and still am a little emotional, little bit of a love/hate thing, thank you and good night, these last few months have been a wild ride folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 15:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7898788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafayette1777/pseuds/Lafayette1777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I’ll see you soon, darling.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It always sounds a little bit like a lie.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Things

**Author's Note:**

> As the EYCTE era comes to a close, I’m thinking about the beginning - it came out on the first of one of the worst months of my life so far, and has been with me ever since. The fact that it still means what it does after time has passed and things have changed is no small thing. So, this is my love note to the album, to the boys, to the fandom and everyone in it—thank you for making these last few months an absolute, unadulterated pleasure. I am honored to have enjoyed this era with you, and can only hope that the next one brings as much as joy and love as this one has. Much love to you all xx
> 
>  
> 
> PS. “Change in all things is sweet” is an Aristotle quote. I didn’t write it, shockingly. However, I did write the prompt fills from a few months ago that I incorporated into this, so this might seem a little familiar if you read any of those when I originally shit them out.

_August, 2016_

 

Sometimes, it feels like he’s said _goodbye_ in every way possible—in every location and situation, with every variation of speech and gesture the human race has ever contrived. There’s something sweet it in, of course, just as there’s something sweet in Alex using the same lips to tell Miles to _fuck off_ as he does to kiss him. It wouldn’t be worth savoring if it didn’t end. 

_Change in all things is sweet._

It’s harder to take such a sanguine view of the situation, now that the end is so imminent. It’s hard to take a view of anything, actually, since Miles’s eyes are closed. He’s breathing at carefully measured intervals—in through the nose, hold for three seconds, out through the mouth. Leaving no room for fear, for mourning, between each inhalation. After a while, Miles opens his eyes and finds Alex in front of him, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

“Ready?” Alex asks, and then grins, suddenly, like he’d been trying to hold it back and instead let it spill forth all at once. He’s reached the right ratio of alcohol, then—drunk enough to perform, sober enough to perform well. 

Miles peeks over his shoulder at the French crowd gathered on the other side of the stage. “Looks a little bit like Paris, don’t you think?”

The edges of Alex’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. “A bit, yeah.”

Miles goes silent, biting his lip and listening to the impatient, intermittent roar of the crowd. 

“What’re you thinking?” Alex asks, as if he doesn’t know already. 

Miles gathers him into a hug by way of a response, and for a moment they just balance against each other. Miles feels Alex’s chest expand with every breath he takes, feels his heartbeat thud in the softness beneath his chin. “I’m thinking about the end,” he says, but it’s a lie. 

He’s thinking about the beginning. 

 

 

_June, 2016_

 

The nights have blended in that pleasant, ephemeral way they do on tour; he doesn’t know what day of the week it is and there’s something enchanting in that realization. Miles takes possession of his own ignorance and shows it off with an inner delight. The months will change, the summer will slip on, but for now they exist out of time and it’s divine. 

Into the night, Alex slurs, “What time is it?”

Miles adjusts his grip on Alex’s torso and keeps a steady pace toward the bus ahead of them. His shoulder is protesting the deadweight that Alex has become in the last few hours of raging through whichever European city this is. In the soft, blue light of the bus, they stumble down the narrow corridor until Alex can collapse into one of the lower bunks with a sigh and a vaguely conscious giggle. His eyes are closed, his limbs already bundling together as he curls into sleep, but still he’s trying to drag Miles down next to him. Murmuring _I love you_ 's and waiting for Miles to cave the way he used to, when they were younger, the first time around when they thought they could get away with anything. 

(Sure, they’d sacrificed some girlfriends over the years. That’s ancient history, though; things are different now. Really.)

Inevitably, though, Miles finds himself pressed into Alex’s bunk and Alex’s arms and Alex’s eyes. Sometimes they kiss, sometimes they fuck, and sometimes they just stare at each other like they’re both thinking the same thing and waiting for the other to say it aloud. 

Truthfully, though, Miles has already said everything he needs to say—back in the dim light of the recording studio, in the first grip of a California winter. Eight years ago it was France, and then it was Malibu. Ultimately, geography didn’t matter, and neither did the passage of time. Alex wasn’t listening anyways. 

“I’m so glad we’re here,” Alex is mumbling, eyes closed. “Together.” He sighs, reaching for Miles in the dark. “I love you.”

Miles lets himself be pulled into the embrace, lets the novelty of the situation settle in his bones. They’re here together, again. Like nothing’s changed. Into Alex’s collarbone, he replies, “I know.”

 

 

_November, 2015_

 

“Truth or dare?”

The studio is quiet but for the hum of sleeping electronics, and then the sudden shift of fabric against fabric—Alex tucking a leg beneath where he sits on the futon across from him. He reaches out a mockingly casual hand to fiddle with the pull on the single lamp lighting the space between them. Somewhere, far off in the heavy Malibu night, the Pacific swells and recedes with every breath they share. 

How do they always end up like this?

They’ve been doing this dance for years, and somehow it always arrives at a loaded, drunken game, where the stakes always seem entirely too high. The mouthful of half lies they spew at each day must be affecting them, adjusting their course ever so slightly until they have no choice but to collide with the truth. At some point, one of them will have to break. For better or, more likely, for worse. 

Miles takes a long swig from the bottle of gin between them and replies, “Truth.”

Alex smirks. “What’s the one thing you’ve never told me?”

“One thing? You assume I’ve told you everything else?” He snorts, but there’s something defensive in the way his arms cross automatically; his tongue is loosening. This might be the moment—maybe Alex wants the truth, or maybe he just wants to win the game. Miles’s vision goes out of focus for a moment and suddenly he can’t tell which he wants, either.

“You’re shit at secrets,” Alex retorts, leaning back on the settee languidly.

Miles shrugs. “I love your trousers. Didn’t tell you ‘cause I was mad jealous.”

“Bullshit. You mouthed it at me in the middle of the last run through of ‘Bad Habits’, thought I wouldn’t notice.”

Miles smirks, lifts one shoulder in tepid defeat. “Couldn’t resist, I s’pose.”

“You’ve gotta do a bit better than that.”

Miles purses his lips, eyes going hard as he appraises Alex from across the room. Finally, his lips pull back into a painful looking smile, and he nods like he can’t quite believe that _this_ , of all times, is the moment. He supposes he should’ve known this is where they’d arrive—that Alex’s quietly desperate plea all those months ago to resurrect the Puppets would only pull them, riptide-like, to this moment in time. 

He places his elbows on the table between them. “I hate you so much,” Miles says slowly, a mean grin snaring his mouth. “But I love you more.”

 

 

_January, 2015_

 

It takes some convincing, it’s true—during the elapsed eight years he’s oscillated between wanting nothing more than to forget the Puppets had ever existed and wanting to spend all his time in the world they created. Six days into the new year, though, he has yet to sway to either extreme; all he’s really been contemplating is how to get his shit together for another solo record. And even that is a worry he’s delayed in exchange for the drunken elation of Alex’s twenty-ninth birthday party.

As the night wanes on, though, he finds himself beneath Alex’s arm, wrapped in a sweaty, sozzled embrace as they tour the pool and the guests and the bar, a never ending spiral of moist, smiling faces. Alex’s mouth moving constantly, a litany of greetings and remarks and laughs, interspersed with indecipherable comments thrown in Miles’s direction every few rotations around the pool. So it takes Miles a moment to realize when Alex makes the shift to talking about the Last Shadow Puppets, of all things.

“We need to get back to it, Mi,” Alex is slurring. “I’m so ready.”

He’s not really asking.

“I dunno, la…it’s not really the right time…”

“Mi, I’m positively _gagging_ for it.” They’re back at the bar now, and Alex’s lips are at his ear. He’s smiling, serpent-like, but there’s something desperate in the black pits of his eyes. Maybe he’s thinking of Paris, of the gap that seven years difference rips open, or perhaps seals closed. “I need to get away from all this for a bit. With you.”

His hand is resting on Miles’s hip in the way it always does when he wants something. What that thing is, though, seems a little less than straightforward. Alex leans in, pressing his forehead against Miles’s, making viciously persistent eye contact. “Miles,” he says softly, and Miles already knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “Please. I love you.”

Miles closes his eyes, takes a shuddering breath, and caves. The spiral really doesn’t end, ever. “Alright.”

 

 

_August, 2016_

 

Alex has a tendency to ride off into the sunset.

The show is long over, the sun has risen again, but his ears are still ringing. Miles runs a thumb over the callouses on the tips of the fingers on his left hand. He can’t let them get soft. Not again. 

They’re standing on the sidewalk, Miles smoking, Alex fidgeting like he wishes he was, too. The merciful thing would be to put out the cigarette, Miles knows, but he’s feeling raw in the way that only nicotine is going to soothe. Around them, Paris is slowly rising again from the depth of night. The quintessentially French cab driver, after popping the trunk for Alex’s things, has climbed back into the driver’s seat to rub at his eyes and tune the radio. 

For them, it’s always been Paris. It’s possible they’ve been standing here for years, waiting for the other to speak. 

Miles takes one last drag on that cigarette, and offers it to Alex. He accepts it without the slightest hesitation. He says, “It’s good that it’s over, right? Keep it short and sweet.”

Miles frowns. “Do you really believe that?”

Alex smiles softly and, for the first time, Miles sees the exhaustion around his eyes and in the lines of his mouth. It’s been a long night, and a long journey into it. Alex shrugs. “I dunno.”

With the edge of his sneaker, Miles nudges the lid of a beer bottle off the edge of the sidewalk and into the street. 

“Did you really mean it when you said you hated me?” Alex asks. “Back in Malibu?”

Miles doesn’t look up from the pavement. “That was a while ago.”

Something settles between them. It’s familiar; the gap is widening again. Alex forsakes the cigarette once it’s down to a nub, smoothes his clothes and his hair. The time for goodbyes has come again. 

“Alright,” Alex says, gathering his things. “Until next time, love.”

He kisses Miles on the cheek, then on the mouth, all the while leaving that ancient, sweet ache lingering beneath every touch. Miles gives him a last, brave smile, smoothes some hair back behind Alex’s ear. The world is ending and he’s smiling. They both are. 

Until next time.

**Author's Note:**

> lafayette1777.tumblr.com


End file.
